World Holocaust Rememberance Day. We Will Remember- Never Again.

The International Day in memory of the victims of the Holocaust is thus a day on which we must reassert our commitment to human rights.

We must also go beyond remembrance, and make sure that new generations know this history. We must apply the lessons of the Holocaust to today’s world. And we must do our utmost so that all peoples may enjoy the protection and rights for which the United Nations stands.

— Message by Secretary-General Ban Ki-Moon for the second observance of the Holocaust Victims Memorial Day on 19 January 2008.

International Holocaust Remembrance Day, which is observed on January 27, 2017, is an international memorial day for the victims of the Holocaust. Holocaust is the genocide that resulted in the annihilation of six million European Jews as well as millions of others by the Nazi regime. The day was designated by the United Nations General Assembly Resolution on November 1, 2005. This text has been taken from

The Resolution establishing January 27 as International Holocaust Remembrance Day urges every member nation of the U.N. to honor the memory of Holocaust victims, and encourages the development of educational programs about Holocaust history to help prevent future acts of genocide. It rejects any denial of the Holocaust as an event and condemns all manifestations of religious intolerance, incitement, harassment or violence against persons or communities based on ethnic origin or religious belief.

January 27 is the date, in 1945, when the largest Nazi death camp (Auschwitz-Birkenau), was liberated by Soviet troops. This camp was a network of Nazi concentration and extermination camps built and operated by the Third Reich in Polish areas annexed by Nazi Germany during World War II. It was the largest of the German concentration camps. This text has been taken from te-

The gas chambers of Birkenau were blown up by the SS in an attempt to hide the German crimes from the advancing Soviet troops. The SS command sent orders on January 17, 1945 calling for the execution of all prisoners remaining in the camp, but in the chaos of the Nazi retreat the order was never carried out. On January 17, 1945, Nazi personnel started to evacuate the facility. (With material from: Wikipedia.)

Read more about the liberation of Auschwitz from the United States Holocaust Museum found HERE. From the on-line exhibition we learn this: “On January 27, 1945, the Soviet army entered Auschwitz and liberated more than 7,000 remaining prisoners, who were mostly ill and dying. It is estimated that at minimum 1.3 million people were deported to Auschwitz between 1940 and 1945; of these, at least 1.1 million were murdered.”

To understand this history and to avoid its recurrence, we have to know the antidote to the virus of hate and abuse and intolerance. Often, the virus starts slowly and in small ways, and only spreads and grows when people say and do nothing.

In Nazi Germany, one of the first acts of government was to ‘suspend’ laws protecting human rights. That’s something we must guard against ever happening again.